第63章

Newman kept his promise, or his menace, of going often to the Rue de l'Universite, and during the next six weeks he saw Madame de Cintre more times than he could have numbered.

He flattered himself that he was not in love, but his biographer may be supposed to know better.He claimed, at least, none of the exemptions and emoluments of the romantic passion.

Love, he believed, made a fool of a man, and his present emotion was not folly but wisdom; wisdom sound, serene, well-directed.

What he felt was an intense, all-consuming tenderness, which had for its object an extraordinarily graceful and delicate, and at the same time impressive, woman who lived in a large gray house on the left bank of the Seine.

This tenderness turned very often into a positive heart-ache;a sign in which, certainly, Newman ought to have read the appellation which science has conferred upon his sentiment.

When the heart has a heavy weight upon it, it hardly matters whether the weight be of gold or of lead; when, at any rate, happiness passes into that place in which it becomes identical with pain, a man may admit that the reign of wisdom is temporarily suspended.Newman wished Madame de Cintre so well that nothing he could think of doing for her in the future rose to the high standard which his present mood had set itself.

She seemed to him so felicitous a product of nature and circumstance that his invention, musing on future combinations, was constantly catching its breath with the fear of stumbling into some brutal compression or mutilation of her beautiful personal harmony.

This is what I mean by Newman's tenderness: Madame de Cintre pleased him so, exactly as she was, that his desire to interpose between her and the troubles of life had the quality of a young mother's eagerness to protect the sleep of her first-born child.

Newman was simply charmed, and he handled his charm as if it were a music-box which would stop if one shook it.

There can be no better proof of the hankering epicure that is hidden in every man's temperament, waiting for a signal from some divine confederate that he may safely peep out.

Newman at last was enjoying, purely, freely, deeply.

Certain of Madame de Cintre's personal qualities--the luminous sweetness of her eyes, the delicate mobility of her face, the deep liquidity of her voice--filled all his consciousness.

A rose-crowned Greek of old, gazing at a marble goddess with his whole bright intellect resting satisfied in the act, could not have been a more complete embodiment of the wisdom that loses itself in the enjoyment of quiet harmonies.

He made no violent love to her--no sentimental speeches.

He never trespassed on what she had made him understand was for the present forbidden ground.But he had, nevertheless, a comfortable sense that she knew better from day to day how much he admired her.

Though in general he was no great talker, he talked much, and he succeeded perfectly in making her say many things.

He was not afraid of boring her, either by his discourse or by his silence; and whether or no he did occasionally bore her, it is probable that on the whole she liked him only the better for his absense of embarrassed scruples.

Her visitors, coming in often while Newman sat there, found a tall, lean, silent man in a half-lounging attitude, who laughed out sometimes when no one had meant to be droll, and remained grave in the presence of calculated witticisms, for appreciation of which he had apparently not the proper culture.

It must be confessed that the number of subjects upon which Newman had no ideas was extremely large, and it must be added that as regards those subjects upon which he was without ideas he was also perfectly without words.He had little of the small change of conversation, and his stock of ready-made formulas and phrases was the scantiest.

On the other hand he had plenty of attention to bestow, and his estimate of the importance of a topic did not depend upon the number of clever things he could say about it.He himself was almost never bored, and there was no man with whom it would have been a greater mistake to suppose that silence meant displeasure.

What it was that entertained him during some of his speechless sessions I must, however, confess myself unable to determine.

We know in a general way that a great many things which were old stories to a great many people had the charm of novelty to him, but a complete list of his new impressions would probably contain a number of surprises for us.He told Madame de Cintre a hundred long stories; he explained to her, in talking of the United States, the working of various local institutions and mercantile customs.

Judging by the sequel she was interested, but one would not have been sure of it beforehand.As regards her own talk, Newman was very sure himself that she herself enjoyed it: this was as a sort of amendment to the portrait that Mrs.Tristram had drawn of her.

He discovered that she had naturally an abundance of gayety.

He had been right at first in saying she was shy; her shyness, in a woman whose circumstances and tranquil beauty afforded every facility for well-mannered hardihood, was only a charm the more.

For Newman it had lasted some time, and even when it went it left something behind it which for a while performed the same office.

Was this the tearful secret of which Mrs.Tristram had had a glimpse, and of which, as of her friend's reserve, her high-breeding, and her profundity, she had given a sketch of which the outlines were, perhaps, rather too heavy? Newman supposed so, but he found himself wondering less every day what Madame de Cintre's secrets might be, and more convinced that secrets were, in themselves, hateful things to her.She was a woman for the light, not for the shade; and her natural line was not picturesque reserve and mysterious melancholy, but frank, joyous, brilliant action, with just so much meditation as was necessary, and not a grain more.

To this, apparently, he had succeeded in bringing her back.